Interview with Day on the book, Hippie Cult Leader

James Buddy Day admits his heart started racing when he first heard Charles Manson profess his innocence.

It just seemed so surreal.

Granted, there probably wasn’t much about the Calgary filmmaker and author’s year-long relationship with one of the most notorious human beings on earth that wasn’t surreal. But it was the early days of Day’s phone conversations with the infamous cult leader and criminal. The calls started to come after Day sent him a letter, which included his personal phone number. Manson would make collect calls from California State Prison at odd hours in the day. Day never knew when they would be coming, but had told Manson that he wanted to give the man convicted of being the architect of the horrifying Tate-LaBianca murders the opportunity to “set the record straight.”

What followed was a bit of a cat-and-mouse game at first.